To think these views shouldn't exist anymore?

[sounsupportive]

I’ve suffered with mental health problems on and off forever. Very mild depression occasionally, stress, mainly anxiety.
Awful anxiety which affects my sleep, eating habits, ability to think clearly, I get physical chest pain with it, repetitive thoughts etc.
This has all been diagnosed by various doctors and I am on medication as and when I need it.
However, I’m from a family that don’t believe that mental health problems exist.
In the past week I’ve been told that nobody wants to hear my incessant moaning about how anxious I feel, that I need to snap out of it, mental health doesn’t exist as they’ve never suffered from it and they’ve been through some awful times themselves, I’m a burden to the tax payer, I’m using doctors appointments that other people could have, and that basically I’m ridiculous.
Just to clarify, I maybe visit the doctor once every 3/4 months to tweak meds or change things.
These people are aged around 60-80.
Does a whole generation really believe that mental health doesn’t exist? Or is it just that generation of my own family?
Is there a stigma in this generation?
I know that everyone my age is very sympathetic to mental health problems, but around my family they even shout at me if they find I’m on medication for anxiety/depression and call me ridiculous and say it’s all in my mind.

In fact, I suffered for a long time as a teenager with mental health problems but my family refused to talk about it or to take me to the doctor. So I wasn’t actually diagnosed until I left home at 16 and went to the doctor myself, so for perhaps 5 years I really struggled alone with it all.

My mother is 60+ and has those views. She thinks that I saw a therapist in order to shame her and that everyone who pays for a therapist gets a mental illness diagnosis.

I have been NC for nearly 20 years and feel much better for it. (Still have issues but it's one less issue in my life)

It's ironic that they say it's all in your mind. If it's all in your mind then surely that itself would be a mental illness?

It’s as if I want these mental health problems?
If it was all in my mind, then I’d erase it surely?!
Yes, that’s exactly it. My family think it’s shameful to have mental health problems.
The funniest thing being, that a couple of them in my opinion definitely have them themselves!

My Sister is in her 60's and has depression, which she fully understands and it was her job to support people with other MH conditions, all of her working life, so, no, not everyone of that generation thinks like your Family.

My GM and Mother, born 1911 and 1928, were sympathetic to all MH/disabilities.

When do you think Psychology/Psychiatry came into being?

Do you think that no-one over 50 ever worked in MH?

Is every one of your age group Ageist, or do you think it's just you who hold these views?

Oh gosh, yes. Don’t get my started on counselling! Apparently that’s a load of clap trap.
More advice I got today is that I don’t have anxiety, I just need to go for a nice swim?!

Oh and just for the record, post Menopause anxiety is a real thing.

But it gets ignored, because, after all, us dodery old dears, aren't in touch with reality, anyway.

I’m not ageist, I’m Middle Aged myself.
But in my circle of friends/family I have found that the people that deny that mental health problems exist are generally older.
I was told by one that he’d been in the war, and if he could come out with no anxiety and depression then everyone could.
I’ve also seen counsellors in their 50/60s that have been amazing. So I’m not tarring everyone with the same brush.
But I have never heard a person under 30 for example saying that mental health doesn’t exist.
Perhaps younger people are educated more on it?

I think from looking at a certain relative of mine that holds those views, it’s not so much a stigma- more that they (and many others they know) are so bloody miserable themselves they’ve just got used to it and don’t really see it as an illness.

It’s like they don’t realise it doesn’t have to be this way, and that we don’t put up and shut up about it any more.

I suspect that those who don't "believe" in mental health also don't "believe" in SEN like ADHD or severe allergies.

I'm with Birds. My DSis is in her 60s and bipolar. Our parents were totally supportive.

They're just a bunch of gaslighting bullshitters ignore them OP

alternatively you could amuse yourself by insisting that their various ailments are just all in the mind and not real 😂

Sod it.
I know my symptoms are real, and if you don’t believe that anxiety exists because you’ve never experienced it then lucky bloody you.

DH had a nervous breakdown last year, his DM/DF thought that if he went to the GP about it he'd be institutionalised.

They are crazy, ignorant, toxic people and smack bang in the middle of your family's age group

My parents don't seem to believe in illness full stop. My mum thinks you get fired if you take a sick day.

Not one single person said they didn't believe you.

DH had a nervous breakdown last year, his DM/DF thought that if he went to the GP about it he'd be institutionalised.

They are crazy, ignorant, toxic people and smack bang in the middle of your family's age group

My parents don't seem to believe in illness full stop. My mum thinks you get fired if you take a sick day.

I don't think it's an attitude related to age - there's a lot of stigma attached to MH generally.

Even the term Mental Health to some people connotes paranoid gun-toting madmen.

Not ordinary people coping with trauma, ordinary people coping with chemical/hormonal issues and normal people coping with life changing events.

Matt Haig is a great advocate of de-stigmatising mental health issues.

I have heard views like these from older generations. Not everyone admittedly. Similarly the casual racism and homophobia from my grandmothers generation was shocking to me. Attitudes toward many things change over time, often for the better. Also terminology changes. What once was referred to as 'nerves' we now would say is anxiety. I sympathise OP, I have similar MH problems, and I can honestly say my older relatives don't get it. They may never understand in truth. Luckily my GPs have always been amazing.

A nice swim? Has anybody suggested kale to you yet?!

The one about the war is curious. Has he not heard of PTSD? Shell shock? Battle fatigue?

He may well have come through it unscathed, but that seems rather more a case of "the exception that proves the rule"... Like how there is always someone whose best friend's cousins' grandad smoked 140 cigarettes a day and lived to be 103 years old without so much as a sniffle in his whole life. Doesn't mean smoking doesn't cause cancer etc.

I quite like it when people say "it's all in your mind". Gives me a chance to roll my eyes and sweetly reply "well, it wouldn't be in my liver/kidneys/thumbs, would it?"